Patrice Greanville, TGP
Rose: Putting a cultured veneer on blatant disinformation.
•
CBS, which for some time now has been veering ever more acutely to the right, in some embarrassing ways seeming these days a merely more refined version of Fox News, recently gave its early show a facelift, recruiting among others the uber urbane Charlie Rose to anchor its new flagship glitzier show, CBS This Morning. The idea here was to give the show more “class”, and whack the competition in the process.
Readers familiar with American media taxonomy will instantly recognize Rose as one of the most notorious specimens around; a social climber and careerist who manages to stand out in the ranks of a much debased industry, and a figure who by rights could be called television’s establishment pet, or, better still, the bourgeois court’s favorite brown noser. (Well, those attributes can also be read as mighty pluses in any capitalist environment, so nothing terribly surprising here that Rose has reached the top.)
Of course, as we might expect, all these cosmetics have served no purpose in terms of raising the quality of the show, as this item on Syria proves. [Watch it below. The addendum also carries the CBS text accompanying this presentation.]
This worsening of standards is nothing new, considering the ghastly record of the American media (and Western media in general) as a literal stenographer to imperial power, but the descent has become, if anything, more precipitous under Chairman Les Moonves’ command. It doesn’t shock us, therefore, that CBS News has been toeing the State Department line with enthusiasm, and that blatant disinformation has become the norm instead of the frequent exception. Doubtful? Ponder for a moment what the average ignorant, clueless American will get out of this story. Will s/he think another “humane intervention” is in order to save Syrian lives as we so “nobly” did in Libya, to catastrophic effect for the Libyan population? Or will the audience walk away thinking there’s really no reason to meddle in that nation? Judge for yourselves. But, as you do, keep in mind that at any time another major network (except for Fox which does it all the time and gloats about it) can match this kind of propaganda and possibly exceed it.
Manipulation under freedom was never so good.
—Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post’s editor in chief.
___________________________________________
Key people at CBS
Leslie Moonves, Chairman of CBS
Nancy Tellem (President of CBS Network Television Entertainment)
ADDENDUM
Ex-ambassador: U.S. needs to do more in Syria
(CBS News)
A former U.S. Ambassador said the Obama administration, in refusing to get more involved in the unrest in Syria, is “sitting back on its laurels in Libya,” while allowing the Syrian people to suffer.
In a recent article in The Huffington Post, Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, wrote that there is a double standard in the United States’ reaction to the unrest in Syria compared to Libya.
“The administration makes this argument that Syria is a far more complicated situation that could spill over across the region,” Ginsberg said on “CBS This Morning: Saturday.” “Whereas with Libya, there was an imminent threat of a humanitarian catastrophe. Frankly, I argued in this article that that’s a double standard, that the slaughter that’s taking place in Syria, evidenced by the interviews by the U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford just in the last few days, is an indication that the administration needs to stop leading from behind here and needs to basically coordinate a major effort to try to stop the arms transfers that Russia has engaged in under the very guise of its own veto. If there is any country that’s actually engaged in militarizing the situation, it’s Russia under the cover of its own veto.”
Ginsberg said there are several actions the U.S. can take with regards to Syria, including bringing an indictment in the International Criminal Court against the regime of President Bashar Assad; launch a humanitarian corridor to Turkey to provide support for refugees and others fleeing the violence; continue to push the United Nations to put forth resolutions, daring Russia to veto them; and covert activity under the guise of humanitarian support.
“We’re not doing enough,” Ginsberg said. “It’s clear that this administration is sitting back on its laurels in Libya, and as a result the Syrian people are paying the price for the administration’s reluctance under the argument it doesn’t want to militarize the situation any further. It really needs to get more involved”
Syrian general slain in Damascus, regime says
Satellite spots tanks in Syrian city
Diplomat: U.S. military not the answer in Syria
Ginsberg also discussed the news this morning that gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Saturday, the first killing of a high-ranking military officer in Damascus since the uprising began. He described the assassination as a reprisal attack.
“There is no doubt that there’s a series of attacks that have been launched by the Free Syrian Army against the elements of the regime that are basically involved in coordinating the fighting,” Ginsberg said. “This is probably one of the highest-level Syrian officials that have actually been the target, probably of an assassination by defectors who essentially are engaged in reprisal attacks against the military for the slaughter that’s taking place across the country.”
Ginsberg said that before last week’s veto in the United Nations Security Council, “the Free Syrian Army actually had control over of some of the outskirts of Damascus, which is an indication of how far this rebellion has advanced to the major cities of Syria – beyond those cities that have essentially been rebelling since the beginning of this rebellion in March of last year.”
_______________________________________________________________________________
¶
ADVERT PRO NOBIS
IF YOU CAN’T SEND A DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, AND YOU THINK THIS PUBLICATION IS WORTH SUPPORTING, AT LEAST HELP THE GREANVILLE POST EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE BY MENTIONING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS VIA TWEET OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS!
We are in a battle of communications with entrenched enemies that won’t stop until this world is destroyed and our remaining democratic rights stamped out. Only mass education and mobilization can stop this process.
It’s really up to you.
Do your part while you can.
•••
Donating? Use PayPal via the button below.
THANK YOU.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________